The Rise of the Fallen
by Slone13
Summary: A party of three Greek demigods are deemed missing. Two have been killed on Mount Katahdin at Baxter State Park in Maine. One has been taken prisoner by the Danes that surround the area. These are all acts of war pertaining to the treaty that the Norse demigods had agreed to sign. Will there be blood to shed?
1. Mount Katahdin

**Jo Burnham and Eric Clausen stood** above the tree line at the edge of the tablelands. The area around them was rich with alpine communities and contained a variety of shrubs. Further up the flatland behind them, lichen-growing rocks dotted the plain. They'd pitched their tents on the flat and level ground just on the other side of Baxter Peak, where a small overhang looked over the west end of the surrounding lake. They weren't in walking distance to any drinking water and all their natural windbreaks were at least eight hundred feet below them, but they were prepared for their scouting exhibition.

Jo was crouched beside Eric. They were dressed for the bitter weather - they wore black, long-sleeved compression shirts and windbreakers under thermal Carhartt jackets with dark gray hiking pants that they could detach at the knee to convert to shorts. They both wore waterproof hiking boots, scuffed from use and muddied from the trek through the wet paved portaging trails.

Numerous pillars of smoke from the surrounding campgrounds billowed up against the darkening sky, torn by the ragged opaque lobes that clumped together in a field of mammatus clouds. The foregrounds that surrounded the lake below were empty and in shadow. The mood seemed wistful and elegiac. The sight from where Jo and Eric stood was an inviting one, yet it seemed as though, between the current time of daylight and darkness, that the air was holding its breath. It was something to endure at a great distance away.

The two of them looked out over the scenery below them. It was mostly covered by the low vegetation. Eric looked through a pair of night-vision binoculars, his cockpit sunglasses perched on top of his head. They were golden-framed, the lenses rose-tinted and expensive. Jo didn't know why he'd brought them. He was just going to lose them again, but she supposed _again_ stressed his vocabulary of wealth.

"What do you see?" she asked him, playing with the fine hair on the back of her neck, twirling the short strands around her finger. "Are there any _afturganga_ or _hamingja_?"

Eric's eyebrows were pinched together, either in concentration or because he wasn't satisfied with what he was or wasn't seeing. "No," he said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly. "I see families making s'mores, stargazers, and a... a circle of nudists doing, playing, smoking? I dunno." He took the binoculars away from his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his other hand and exhaled a heavy sigh. "Jo."

"Yo!" Jo stood up so fast, she heard her knee joints pop the same time the goggles that hung around her neck smacked her in the face. She held out her arms to balance herself.

Eric wore a smug grin. "Nice."

"Ugh..." Jo used her sleeve to scrub at her face. "So no monsters, no suspicions. What are we going to do now? George isn't going to like our no-info report."

Eric brought the binoculars back up to his eyes. "I didn't say anything about _no suspicions_. Look at this."

Jo took his binoculars and looked through the eyepieces. The night-vision turned the darkness a green-scale depiction of high definition. Eric directed her gaze where he wanted her to look. What she saw were three people sitting around what she presumed was a bonfire, but because the canopy of the surrounding trees were blocking most of her view of them, Jo couldn't get a very good look.

She gave the binoculars back to Eric. "They're only kids," she said. "What of it?"

"You can't really see it with the night-vision, but they're burning green fire." Eric put away the binoculars in the pocket of his jacket. "You know what that means, right?" He gave Jo a side glance.

Jo furrowed her eyebrows. "Greek fire. Greek demigods. Look, if they've got that shit, it's gonna burn like a bitch. We should bring incendiaries." Eric arched a brow and Jo shrugged. "It's just a thought."

"Maybe," Eric said and looked over at the shadowed greenery below them, a small prominent green glow just off by the lake's shore. "How do we want to do this? It's not like we can just walk down there and into their camp."

Jo pulled her goggles over her head and strapped them back on, adjusting the strap so the cushions around the lenses fitted comfortably around her eyes. The mesh of the night was colored in rich molds of oranges and yellows, acting as an improvised night-vision of sorts.

The night was a brutal chill. Every breath was seen at every convenient sigh. When Jo retreated to hike up the tableland towards their campsite, Eric followed suit and repeated his question in a more demanding inquire.

"How do we want to do this, Jo?"

"We're on orders from George, so we'll do what anyone would do with xenophobia." Jo side-stepped between two boulders.

Eric made a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. "I know what you're doing," he said, "and the answer is no. We aren't just going to murder a few kids so you can get a closer look at that Greek fire. Besides, what would _George_ think when he saw that we brought back something of Grecian heritage."

"Okay, well, first of all, _Eric_ , Greek fire was manufactured and used by the Byzantines, which was part of the Eastern. _Roman_. Empire. It never began with the Greeks, but they _were_ the first to record its existence."

Eric made a sharp exhale, a sneer at best, and grabbed the back of Jo's jacket collar to force her to stop. "So you're going to steal something that the _Romans_ created when you know, as well as _I_ do and rest of camp, that it's going to cause a huge fuss between the Greeks, the Romans, and _us_?"

Jo snorted a laugh. "You're kidding, right? Stealing something like that isn't going to do any harm to anyone."

" _Stealing_ won't be the problem, but I know you. You aren't planning to leaving them unscathed. _That_ would do a lot of harm to everyone."

"Says who?"

"Says the treaty Ull and Alvíss had to sign and the demands we had - _have_ , might I add - to assent to."

Eric and Jo exchanged daggered stares, their gazes never wavering. That was, until Jo shouldered Eric's hand off of her shoulder and turned around. Their pitched tents were just in sight. The fire they'd smothered out was no longer smoldering.

Jo walked to the closest tent on her right and unzipped the entry flap. Inside was a make-shift bed, a sleeping bag spread out across a waterproof ground mat with a pillow to match. There wasn't much but rugged carpeting made out of numerous blankets and an unzipped backpack with most of its contents strewn about on top of the sleeping bag. A quiver and bow were on the ground by the pillow, the arrows lined together neatly nearby. Jo saw the bow and ducked in to grab it.

Eric stood hunched at the tent's entry. "This is a bad idea."

Jo slung the quiver's strap across her chest. "Then why aren't you stopping me?" The fletching of the arrows stuck out of the quiver, the bow's grip clutched in the palm of her hand. "Look, I'll be back in two shakes and a quiver. It'll give you time to let off some steam."

"Gross," Eric deadpanned.

Jo shrugged and shouldered back Eric. She teetered her head left and right with the palm of her hand, hearing those satisfying pops. "This is going to be _so_ good," she crooned to herself.

She took the trail back down towards the tablelands and made forth, trekking down the steep slope towards the forest below, and then finally to the krummholz-formed white pines by the lake's tree line of its beachy shore.


	2. This Is Bullshit

**"Hey, dipshit, got any red threes?"** Johnson asked, his seven cards splayed out in his hands.

Anthony furrowed their eyebrows, pursing their lips. "John, there're hearts and diamonds, and they're both red. Which one is it?"

"Hearts."

"Go-fish."

"Bullshit!" Johnson folded his cards into a small stack and gestured wildly with a free hand. "Threes have to be the most basic fucking card in the whole fucking deck. I call bullshit that you don't have any."

"If we're calling _bullshit_ ," Mira said, looking down tentatively at her own hand of cards, "then we're playing the wrong game. John, take a card from the deck. It's my turn."

Johnson flayed his cards and took one from the main pile. It was a three of hearts, and he slapped that sucker down hard with his other matching suits. Anthony rolled their eyes. Mira looked up from her cards to choose someone to pick. She chose Johnson.

"John, do you have any aces?"

Johnson begrudgingly slipped his ace of spades from his hand and gave it to Mira.

"Thank you," she said and set out three aces she'd managed to keep.

Anthony whistled. "Seven pairs. Mira, you're a pro."

"It's all about memorizing what cards each player has. Anthony, it's your turn."

"Oh, right." They looked down at what cards they had and contemplated whether to ask Mira or Johnson. Mira had the least amount of cards in her hand, so Anthony chose Johnson to ask. "So, uh, John—"

"Great."

"—do you have any kings?"

"This is fucking bullshit." Johnson handed Anthony his king of clubs.

Anthony took the card and paired it up with their king of hearts, settling it on the ground by their feet. "Sorry," they said, but there was no sympathy.

Johnson made a _tsk_ noise with his tongue. "Yeah, you'll be sorry once I—"

Mira raised an eyebrow, a grin working its way to her lips. "Once you do _what_ , John?"

But Johnson wasn't listening. He'd interrupted himself by stopping mid-sentence to peer up into the darkness around them. The green flames of the bonfire casted an illusion of pitch blackness outside of light's glow. Their tents were in view, so were the starting trees by the shore, but they bled black the further you looked. The three of them could hear near to everything around them, but seeing what they heard was a completely different matter.

Johnson started to stand up, what cards he had left slipping out of his hand and cascading to the ground.

"What's wrong?" Anthony asked.

Mira flung her cards somewhere behind her, just about done with whatever Johnson was pulling. "He's probably faking it, trying to scare us." She gave him a pointed look. "It isn't working, _dipshit_."

"Will you two shut the fuck up?"

"Hey!" Mira exclaimed. "Look, I don't know what's got you so pissed off, but telling us to _shut the fuck up_ isn't solving anything. What's got you so riled up?"

"I thought I heard something." Johnson looked out into the blackness beyond the bonfire's virescent luminance, seeing nothing but the forest and the dark.

Anthony bit at the chapped skin of their bottom lip. "We're by Millinocket Camp. You might have heard some group screwing around."

"Look, Tony," Johnson said, "I know what I heard. It was a snap, like a twig or something. If it was a group of shit-wads, then I wouldn't be so concerned, but it _was_ n't."

A sort of _twing_ was heard and something whizzed past the left side of Johnson's head, right by his eye. He saw it, even if it was for a second. And he _felt_ it. It was long and narrow, the head glinted in the light of the fire. What he felt were the fletching ends that gave him a double cut on his cheek. He could feel the blood running down the side of his face. When Johnson glanced behind him, an arrow was embedded into the sand a few feet away.

Mira and Anthony stood up.

Johnson signed something with his hands.

 _Under. Attack._

The three of them made a break for their tents.

Mira nearly crashed into her tent, having had been too anxious and too scared to remember that she'd zipped up the flap before joining her companions at a game of Go-Fish. So she improvised and scrambled to get behind her tent, kicking up clouds of sand and just about face-planted when her right arm gave out for a second.

There was another _twing_ , but this time, whoever had notched the first arrow had more luck with the second one. Mira heard the scream before she could make sense of who it belonged to. It was a short yell, all throat and broken, a heavy inhale towards the end. The rest followed with cooing sobs.

Mira could see Johnson's silhouette within his tent. He was crouched near the opening, his sword in hand, reading to pounce out and attack the intruder. The hurt cries were still heard, and Johnson didn't look close to being critically injured in any way, and so Mira felt something sick churn in the pit of her stomach when she realized who'd been shot.

Anthony laid sprawled out on the ground, the upper half of their body inside their tent and lower half sticking out to nature. Tears blurred their vision, pooling at the tip of their nose and chin, and dripping onto their hands. They'd been shot through the side of their thigh and they couldn't concentrate on anything more than the pain they felt.

"Tony!" Johnson called out. "Tony, can you move?"

His voice didn't have that biting tone it usually held, and Anthony was completely grateful for that, but they didn't think they'd be able to comply to his query.

"I, um… I don't—Matt, I can't." Fresh tears welled up in Anthony's eyes. "I can't move."

Johnson's heart just about shattered. "What do you mean you _can't move_?" He didn't mean to sound brash in any way, but this was a desperate situation he wasn't sure he could handle.

Anthony gritted their teeth. "What the hell more do you _want_? I. Can't. Move."

"Fuck."

Johnson had an idea of where the arrows were coming from. He needed one more arrow to accommodate for his surmise, and without anyone dying tonight. He supposed that if Mira could create some sort of illusion to distract the shooter, then he'd have enough time to get Anthony out of harm's way, or at least before they bled to death.

"Mira!" Johnson yelled. He knew she was somewhere near. He'd seen her sprint to her tent.

A second later Mira snapped, "What?" She sounded distressed.

"I need something, like an alteration. Can you do that?"

There was a pause. Mira didn't respond.

"Can you do that?" he repeated.

No response.

"Mira, what the _fuck_?"

Johnson exhaled sharply and exited his tent with long, hesitant strides. Each step strained the muscles in his thighs, but he managed. It wasn't as bad as what Anthony had received. The butt end of the arrow's shaft stuck out from the outer part of their left thigh, a glistening patch of red spreading from the wound onto their jeans. Blood dripped from the other side and pooled beneath their leg, soaking the rest of their pants.

Anthony wasn't moving, not their limbs at least, but their chest slowly rose and fell.

There was a lot of blood.

"Mira," Johnson said. He said her name as a reassurance to himself, that she was just playing some sick version of the silent game.

That sick version of the silent game happened to be an arrow through the head.

Johnson found Mira, just as where he thought she was. She was behind her tent, having scrambled there because her tent's flap was zipped closed. She was lying down against the back of the tent, so it tilted forward slightly, her shoulders hunched up, her head lolled forward. If it weren't for the arrowhead sticking out of her forehead or the blood that trailed down the front of her face, Johnson would have assumed that she was asleep.

Johnson's first thought was of ambrosia and nectar, but that was in vain. The food and drink of the gods wouldn' be saving any lives tonight.

There was no need to inspect Mira's body, so Johnson walked back to where the green flames of the bonfire crackled without mercy. On the other side of the fire stood a figure, illuminated in a ghostly pastel of green. He couldn't see their eyes behind the goggles they wore. But what he did see was a quiver slung over their shoulder, a bow in their hand.

Johnson was livid.

He pointed the end of his sword towards them. "Who _the fuck_ do you think you are?"

They tilted their head innocently.

"Answer me!" He gestured around him wildly. He wanted them to see what they'd done, how much pain and death they'd caused. But he was pretty sure they already knew.

They gave a wicked smile, and in a blameless voice, said, "I'm the fuck who murdered your friends." There was a cross feeling to the fact that _they_ was one girl. One girl with an ugly attitude.

"Ah, gross."

From his peripheral view, Johnson saw movement between Mira and Anthony's tent. When he glanced towards it, someone was standing beside Anthony. It was a boy. Well, _boy_ being an understatement. He was a _teenage_ boy at best, with one boot lifted up, as if examining it, his mouth screwed up in a disgusting manner. He'd stepped in a small pool of Anthony's blood that had begun to pool in a small crevice of sand.

"If you're going to do something like this, at _least_ choose a more less revolting way of handling it." When he walked towards the girl, he left clotted, bloody shoeprints. " _Swina bqllr_! It's going to take me hoursto get this muck off."

Johnson was fed up.

"That _muck_ ," he said, "is my friend's blood, and you're dragging your shit-stained boots all over it. Have some respect."

He eyed Johnson, then puckered his lips and spat on Anthony.

And then he was moving towards him, slow and amble-like. Johnson gripped his sword's handle with white knuckles and set his left foot behind him, but before he could move a muscle in his arm, the girl had her bow up, the string taut with an arrow notched in place, the head's point directed at him.

"You saw what I could do," the girl said, her voice calm and loud against the surrounding night. "I suggest you lay down your weapon and we can all be civil here."

Johnson narrowed his eyes. "Like hell I'm doing that."

She pursed her lips and she and the other guy exchanged a quick look before lowering her bow slightly and letting go of the arrow. It pierced Johnson's upper arm, the one that held his sword. He dropped it from the sudden pain and let his arm go limp.

The next thing he knew the boy was in front of him, his arm drawn back, his hand balled into a tight fist. With one swift and powerful motion, he sideswiped Johnson's jaw, causing his head to snap to the side. He fell hard and didn't get back up.


	3. A Matrix of Fate

**Eric shook his left hand out,** his knuckles pink from impact. He entwined his fingers together and braced the topmost part of his palms towards him, popping the joints. At his feet was the unconscious body of the Greek demigod he'd just knocked out. John had been his name, or at least that was what his companions called him. The name Matt had also been used, but Eric assumed that knowing what his name really was didn't matter. It shouldn't have mattered.

He looked over to Jo. Her goggles hung around her neck as she was inspecting the Greek fire, passing her hand through the flames. Soot marked her palm when she was done playing with it. She showed Eric.

"No smoke," she said, "but it leaves soot marks? Eric, we _need_ this."

Eric felt tired. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, then at his eyes. "I know. Yeah. Let's just-let's just get these bodies moved. I don't want them to be found with our prints on them."

"Burn them."

"What?"

"Burn them," Jo repeated. "Heat kills germs and all that nasty shit. It'll get rid of all that DNA crap that the authorities won't be able to scrape up because we _burnt_ them."

Eric narrowed his eyes and didn't say anything. He knew, on some degree, that Jo was right. She hadn't used gloves when shooting those arrows. He hadn't wiped the blood off of his boots when stepping in that kid's blood. They were sloppy. They needed a faster way to dispose of the bodies, and the only source they had to _burn_ with was the Greek fire of the bonfire.

"Huhhh..."

Eric's head snapped over to the tent on his far right, the one where the kid he'd stepped around, who had only managed to scramble themselves halfway in their tent. They were alive. At least enough to rasp out a hoarse breath.

He was about to tell this to Jo, that she'd slipped up and he'd finally have bragging rights about her shitty archery skills, but any gloating was caught in his throat when he saw her stalk towards the wheezing kid. She walked over to them and knelt by their head. From the inside of her left boot, she pulled out a black Benchmade knife.

"Anthony, right?" Jo crooned. With the hand that was free and didn't wield the knife, she caressed their cheek with the back of her hand. It was so tender and forgiving, Eric couldn't stop himself from staring.

When Anthony slowly turned their face over, their nose pressing against the knuckles of Jo's hand, they made a sort of gurgling sigh.

"I know, Anthony. But look at this-" She held up the knife to their face, twisting it in her grasp. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't aim properly." She pressed the cutting edge against their cheek and traced down along their jaw, the tip scratching their neck and over their throat, right to the collar. "But you can't move, and I'm a little glad you can't right now."

Eric didn't look away. He watched as Jo gripped the handle of the knife and, with agonizing patience, stuck the blade through Anthony's jugular. He heard the gurgled chokes, the wet sobs, until there was only silence.

But Jo didn't stop. She held up the knife and brought it down. She did it again. And again. And again.

Eric grabbed her wrist before she could carve another laceration in Anthony's neck or face.

"Alright, psycho," he said. "Let's not overdo ourselves." He squeezed her wrist, tight enough to curl her fingers, and pressed his thumb in the space between her thumb and forefinger.

"Hey!" Jo jerked her hand away, dropping the knife onto Anthony's chest. She scrambled to stand up quickly.

Eric took the knife and wiped the blade off on the sleeve of his jacket. Not all the blood was off, but he handed it back to Jo handle-first as the blade-end weighted in his palm. Jo accepted it and placed it back into the hidden sheath that was fixed on the inside of her boot.

Eric massaged his right temple. "Help me get the bodies in the fire. I'll make sure the other one doesn't wake up for a while. And get your arrows. You know they don't burn."

Jo was already one step ahead as he braced one hand on Anthony's thigh, the other grasping onto the arrow's shaft, and yanked. Blood sprayed on her pants. She didn't seem to care.

"One down, two more to go."

"Break the one in the third one's arm. I don't want him dying of blood loss."

Jo gave a mock salute with two fingers as she walked around the middle tent to where Mira was. "Aye aye, sir."

Eric looked over to where Johnson was unconscious on the ground by the bonfire. Behind him, he could hear the squelch and tear as Jo pulled out the arrow she'd lodged through Mira's head. Eric didn't want to think about it, and instead knelt beside Johnson. A bruise had started to form where his fist has made contact with his jaw, and the two cuts where Jo's arrow had spliced him had already dried blood scabbing over them. Eric wanted to apologize, but he supposed that had expired long before.

He broke the arrow in Johnson's arm himself.

Jo came back, dragging Mira with her.

The two of them tossed the dead into the bonfire, Mira first and then Anthony, and watched as the green flames coiled around them, cradling them until their faces were unrecognizable and their skin charred black. Eric murmured a pagan blessing, wishing them a safe journey to Valhalla, despite their Greek descent.

Eric stripped his jacket off and threw it into the fire.

Jo stared at the burning bodies. "Walsh is going to kill us."

"That's an understatement," he said, and leaned back to pop his back. He exhaled sharply when he did so. "George might not care, but we have Vincent to deal with, and I do _not_ want to get on his bad side."

"I think it's all for show. He's just using his father as an excuse to scare us."

"But the fact is that he _is_ his father. I mean, we've had campers who were Loki's children before, but they've never amounted to what Vincent's been able to do."

"And it's even worse knowing that him and George are related." Jo sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Thor's children have always led us, and it's completely unfair that the only child of Thor we have is related to one of Loki's kids. And not, like, related by marriage either. Real blood relation. _Cousins_. It _disgusts_ me."

Eric picked at the skin around his fingernails. "You probably should have thought of that before agreeing to be an _óskmey_ ," he said. Jo whirled on him and opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to the punch. "The sun's going to come up soon and we have to get to Brooklin before sunrise. We'll just leave our stuff and go straight to camp."

"Whatever."

"We'll probably send Alma and Ramos to get it for us in the morning."

"Fine."

Eric and Jo worked separately to accommodate for their time. Jo rummaged through the demigods' backpacks, and found at least several plastic, flat-bottomed vials rolled together in a hand towel. They were filled with halfway with a murky liquid substance, the color a dull jade. There were numerous flecks within them, like pine needles or grass blades.

"No way," she whispered.

Jo rewrapped what she took out and left the tent she was in.

"Yo, Clausen," she called. "Look what I found."

Eric had his arms stretched above his head, his mouth open mid-yawn. Jo hurried up to him and shoved the folded up hand towel against his chest. He quickly held it when she let go.

"The hell, Jo?"

"It's it!" she exclaimed cheerfully.

Eric furrowed his eyebrows. "It?"

" _It_. The fire. The _Greek fire_!"

"Oh, that's nice." He handed the towel back to Jo. "Good job, I, uh, guess."

"Thank you!" she sung and took it back.

"Look, put that away and help me with this guy. I won't be the only one dragging his ass back to our camp."

"Fine."

Jo unrolled the hand towel. She was careful wrapping the vials up again, tighter, and shoved the towel to the bottom of her quiver, where she knew it wouldn't fall out. She and Eric hooked each of Johnson's arms around their necks and held him up by securing their hold around his torso. From there on out, they trekked back into the forest and up the slope towards the tabletops where they'd set up camp.

By the time they arrived, the sky had begun to take on a more formidable discoloration, dusky and disquieting, the trees' silhouettes a mottled stain to the naked eye. Jo and Eric laid Johnson down beside their firepit. Eric retreated into his tent and reemerged with a leather drawstring sack. He poured its contents out, onto the dead cinders, and produced a small silver coin from his front pocket. Jo watched as he flicked it into the pile and as it sunk itself underneath.

"Raven ashes?" She asked.

Eric grunted out an agreeing response.

"Would it happen to be Vincent's ashes?"

Eric grunted out a negative response.

"Damn." Jo sounded disappointed.

Eric cleared his throat. "So, uh… yeah. Ullr or, you know, Alvíss. Whoever answers first, I guess." The pile didn't move. "Right, well, I have some news. Burnham and I scouted out the area, so everything's fine around here. Um…" He fiddled with his fingers, twisting them and picking at the dry skin. "We also have a predicament with a few, erm, _Greeks_ we ran into. They're fine. They're _out_. We're simply asking for a shortcut back to camp. Please. Sir."

Eric held his breath and then slowly, silently, exhaled through his mouth. Jo, who sat with her legs crossed beside him, had her hands cupped over her nose and mouth, her eyes trained on the pile of ashes.

"You were very brave," she whispered.

"Thank you," he whispered back.

And then something happened. The ashes encircled themselves, like a bask of stirred water, dusting up specks of ash and other burnt debris. Tendrils of it twisted and braided together, knotting into something complicated and exhaustive, into a face that Eric and Jo recognized immediately.

Alvíss was known for having a very asymmetrical face. With what his lips lacked in plumpness, his nose made up with its bulbous rotund. His forehead was large and wrinkled, his cheeks saggy. His voice was low and gravely when he spoke, but it resonated at such a high frequency that Eric and Jo's ears rung.

"Mista' Clausen. Mis' Burn'em," Alvíss said. He looked at both of them when addressing their names. "I heard yer message. I've also been told o' what yeh've done, an' from the prerequisite of yer search, I presume yeh've found the needed supplies."

"Yes," Jo piped up. "We've got the stuff."

"Good." And then Alvíss's hallow eyes flickered to something just beyond Eric and Jo's gaze. "I see we'll be havin' a surprise guest."

Eric felt flustered, but composed himself. "Right. I wanted to talk to you about that."

"All in due time."

"Right…" Eric self-consciously rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't know why he was being so gauche now.

"As for yeh 'shortcut back to camp,' I'll be sendin' Aquino an' Lindgren to assist yer arrival back. Be sure to explain yer'selves to'em. I have a zero tolerance fer any miscommunications."

"Yes, sir."

"Burn'em." Jo perked her head up. "I wan' yeh to come see Ullr an' me right 'way when yeh arrive."

"Yessir."

Alvíss sighed. The ash churned, as if he'd actually blown on it. "I'll leave our guest's fate up to Vincent once he arrives. I don't want anything more to happen to 'im. He's in a rough 'nough state as it is. Bring 'im to the 'firmary once yeh've come."

"Yessir."

"That is all."

And then Alvíss's face began to cinder and burn, flecking away until there was no trace of him or the ashes anymore. In its place was a sketchy image seared into the ashy debris of the fire pit. It was a sort of emblem, where there were nine staves that were arranged in an angular grid. When Eric motioned for Jo and they got a closer look at it, they realized it contained all of the shapes of the runes of the Nordic alphabet. Alvíss was a clever dwarf when giving warnings.

As dawn began to break, Eric and Jo packed up their belongings and unpitched their tents. They hid everything within a hollowed out log, partially rotted with moss and reishi mushrooms. Eric wore his sunglasses and Jo had fashioned her goggles so they perched on top of her head. They waited with the two boulders on the tablelands, their guest resting in the shade of one of them.

Eric had been as considerate as possible and drawn a four-cornered shield knot on Johnson's forehead with a permanent black marker. The symbol held his consciousness within him, at least until Eric decided to break it and wake him up. The advantage was that it kept the one it was being used on completely comatose. The only disadvantages were that, whoever it was used on had to already be unconscious and that whoever used it was the only one who could uplift it.

"Eric," Jo said, and pointed down towards the forest. "Look."

Between the human-sized crevice of the twin boulders, down where the ground dipped just enough to elude that of the forest's edge, was a metal chariot. Attached to it by their reins were two horses Eric and Jo knew very well. One was Falhófnir, a large brown and white blotched Irish Cob that had its silver mane braided in hunter braids with a french braided forelock. His name derived to his creation. The other one was something different. Glenr was a sight to behold, and unlike Falhófnir, it wasn't alive, but it looked vital. Glenr was a glass menagerie of its kind, otherworldly and with a tragic beauty. It was a haven from reality because it wasn't flesh and bone, but crafted of glass and _galdr_ , its heart an amber glow.

"Well, _hey_ , you two!"

The voice came from behind them, and when Eric and Jo turned around, there were two girls standing up the slope. They descended, arms linked and hands hidden in their coat pockets. They dressed casual and seemed to shiver against the spring's bitter cold.

Jo and Eric were relieved. Their ride had finally come.


	4. An Itch To Be Scratched

**Chiron had not known the dangers** of their neighbors up north prior to admitting three campers to travel to the next few states above for a recent issue that had arose. Tensions were very high between the Danes and the Greeks ever since Camp Half-Blood amalgamated itself with Camp Jupiter. Chiron had received numerous reports of Nordic activity along Long Island Sound, and it devastated him to see the two familiar faces he wished, for their sake, to never see again.

Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson sat with Chiron in the lawn chairs that furnished the deck of the Big House. They sat around a table, drinks by them already half empty. While Annabeth and Chiron engaged in light conversation about recent camp activities and about the clamber of new campers who'd came within the last four months of Gaea's defeat, Percy was indulging himself in a steak burrito he'd bought at a Mexican joint that Annabeth and he had visited on their way from his place. He ate it with both hands, taking gluttonous bites out of it, the foil wrapping spread out as a makeshift plate.

"I apologize for inviting the two of you so suddenly," Chiron said, as Annabeth and his conversation dulled down to a casual prattle of sorts, "but it seems as though we have a very serious predicament on our hands here at camp."

Annabeth arched an eyebrow. "What sort of predicament?"

"No, wait." Percy put down his burrito, his mouth full. He looked away for a moment to chew and swallow, and then looked back. "Look, Chiron, you're the best." Chiron seemed pleasantly taken aback at that. "Number one teacher here. But before we go divin' into his predicament, I wanna know if the Olympians are involved in any of this."

Annabeth looked at her boyfriend with poignant realization. Of course he'd be asking whether or not the gods would be involved. She knew better than to allow his fidelity towards camp resolve itself into something desperate. He had the majority of senior year to make up, so his omitted time had to be used to some value, and getting involved in another dilemma couldn't be on his agenda this year.

Chiron ducked his head and gave a light chuckle. "You are in luck," he said, and clearly sounded relieved by his own words. "They have no desire to stand where they are not welcome."

Percy made an O.K. gesture with his hand and then picked up his burrito. "Good'nough to hear," he said, before taking a bite.

Annabeth looked at Chiron and narrowed her eyes questionably. "What do you mean by that?" she asked. And then her eyes lit up. "Are you suggesting that there might be other gods involved?"

"Of the sort, yes." But Chiron was clearly distraught by this. "The two of you recall the incident at the Minisceongo Creek in Haverstraw, yes?"

Annabeth said, "Of course," the same time as Percy muffled out a, "No."

"Well," Chiron said. "A few months ago, just weeks after Gaea was put back to sleep, two campers were attacked by, what Mister D and I presume was, a pack of hellhounds. When Jason Grace was here, before his departure to Camp Jupiter, he, Nico di Angelo and Will Solace took it upon themselves to search for them when they hadn't arrived back at camp after a couple of days."

"Holy Hera," Percy said. "Did they find them? They weren't, like, dead or anything, right?"

Chiron's silence held the formidable truth. Percy's appetite hit rock bottom. He placed the uneaten half of his burrito back down, with no intention of eating the rest of it any time soon.

"Unfortunately," Annabeth said, carrying on Chiron's telling, "their bodies were never found. Nico said that he couldn't get a reading on whether they were still alive or not, and Jason had flown all around West Haverstraw and Haverstraw to see if he could spot them, but he never did."

"Gods," Percy murmured. "My condolences."

"Although their bodies were never found," Chiron continued, "their banners were still burnt at the hearth in respect of their alleged deaths. However, to get the point across bluntly, those two demigods' deaths were no accident."

"Well, I mean, of course not." Percy took a sip of his glass of cherry Cola to quench his dry throat. "Those hellhounds probably caught their scent. Were they new campers?"

"They hadn't even stayed at camp for more than four days." Chiron looked Percy dead in the eye, his tired gaze unwavering. "But Percy, this was no twist of fate, despite it being a gruesome one. Here."

Percy watched as Chiron retrieved something from inside his jacket. What it was, was a polaroid photograph. It depicted three black crescents that were interlocked together to form a sort of radial symmetry and two, three interlocked triangles beneath it. The symbols had been carved into the side of a tree. Percy could see the creek in the background.

"These were found in the location of where they were," Chiron said.

Annabeth leaned forward to get a good look at it, her shoulder brushing with Percy's. "I've seen this before," she said and pointed to the topmost symbol. "It's a triskele. Usually it's supposed to be spirals, but this one looks like it could be... well, anything; moons, claws, bows, horns."

"They're cups, actually."

The screen door of the Big House opened. The three of them turned to see a short-statured young man step out and walk towards them. He stood at Chiron's side, his hands in the pocket of his sweater. He had tousled black hair that was parted to the side and eyes that were mismatched, with one being green and the other amber, and his skin a burnish of beige.

"Euth," Chiron said in acknowledgement, then looked to Percy and Annabeth. "May I introduce to you, Euth Agrios. He has been looking after the general myth and language tutoring."

Percy quirked an eyebrow at Annabeth. "Didn't that used to be what you did?" he asked.

Annabeth gave a bashful shrug. "Yeah," she said, and then looked up at Euth. "Thanks for taking over. It's been a really big help while Percy and I are catching up on our senior year."

"No big deal," he assured her.

And then, within the time it took to blink, the prattling was over. Euth got right down to business, something he was no stranger for. He gestured at the photo with a cock of his chin.

"The symbol you were talking about before," he said, "they're cups. Or, well, they're cups made out of horns. According to Norse mythology, the three horns represented the three draughts of mead that the god, Odin, drank."

"And the two below it?" Chiron asked.

"Oh, that's easy." He rocked on the balls of his feet. "Those are borromean triangles, or valknuts. They're mostly found on stone carvings as funerary motifs for the afterlife. If you look at it, there're three triangles, and they suggest the three realms: earth, hel - with one l, because they're lazy - and the heavens. And then the points on each triangle represent the nine domains that the three realms encompass."

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows and looked at Euth, looking bemused. "How do you know all of this?" Her expression softened into something more sly. "Are you some child of Athena or something?"

"No, actually. My dad's Thanatos, but I'm a mythology fanatic, so there's that."

Chiron took the photograph and turned it around so he could look at it. "I was afraid this would happen." He looked tired. There were worry lines between his brows and prominent wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "Child, please, sit." He motioned for Euth to take a seat.

Euth dragged a rocking chair over and slumped into it, crossing his arms over his chest. He rested his right foot on his left knee and watched the conversation unfold before him.

Chiron turned his head to look at him. "Euth, you mentioned that these symbols were of Norse descent?"

"Yep," he said, popping the p. He rocked himself with his foot.

"Hmmm..." Chiron scratched at his beard.

Percy looked lost, like he wasn't quite sure whether he believed or understood anything that was going on. "I don't... what?"

"Several years ago," Chiron said, "before your first arrival here at camp, Percy, there was a negotiation with another camp, of sorts, up north. In Maine, I believe. Our first encounter with them was during a quest, where three demigods were asked by Harmonia herself to retrieve a necklace that was stolen from her. Of course, they returned and fulfilled their given prophecy, however, they did not come back unscathed." Chiron seemed physically distraught. He took in a breath from his nose and exhaled, following what he'd been telling. "As it had been, they had to be admitted to the infirmary for their injuries."

Euth went through a long list of injuries the three demigods had recieved once they came back: abdominal lacerations, broken ribs, sprained ankles, dislocated shoulders, and numerous contusions all over their bodies.

"But those weren't the worst of it." Euth sat himself upright, crossing his legs. "One of them, they had their finger cut off, right at the second digit. Another, three of their fingernails had been completely ripped off. And the other had a few of their teeth pulled out—"

"I think," Chiron interjected, placing a freckled hand on Euth's knee, "that is enough. Thank you, Euth."

What was left of his burrito, Percy could practically envision it as spilled intestines or chunks of human remains. The gory detail Euth told them had his stomach wrenching uncomfortably. Annabeth's glass of water began to ripple in reverse.

"What about the carvings on their backs?" Annabeth asked suddenly, keenly, like she was too enthralled to dismiss anything.

Chiron patted Euth's knee and pulled it back to his lap. "Yes, well, according to a few victims of these lacerations themselves, those carvings depicted a bird. An eagle, to be specific. And, ah, if I'm not mistaken, it was the step-one of an execution ritual."

"A Norse execution ritual, might I add," Euth piped in.

A crease formed between Annabeth's brows. She was clearly displeased about something. "What?" The storm in her eyes razed. "How did we ever come to terms with them?"

Them, Percy assumed, was the strange camp in Maine. He had never thought that there would be another, potential, demigod training facility so close to Camp Half-Blood. Well, he had, with the exception of the Egyptian magicians who were just next door in Brooklyn, but nothing as brutal or unmerciful as he'd heard.

"There would have been more bloodshed if we hadn't come to terms with them." Chiron took a sip of his Chamomile tea, but it didn't seem to calm his nerves. "Besides, they were the first to broach a peace treaty. The first time they broke it, it was with the two campers at the creek."

"And the second time?" Percy pressed, curious now. Very curious.

"The second time they broke the treaty, although it is still up for question, was last night, when three demigods left camp to pursue any monsters that may have escaped through the Doors of Death. They left last Sunday and haven't returned."

"They've been gone a week?"

"Give or take a few days," Euth added. He wasn't helping.

Annabeth massaged her temples. "Then what do we do? What do you propose we do?"

"Confront them would be the only reasonable way at the moment," Chiron said.

There was a sigh.

"If I had known you would be confronting us, I wouldn't have bothered to come. But since I'm here, why not start now?"

With a noticeable slouch in his posture, a young man walked toward the table, his hands shoved into the back pockets of his dark jeans. He wore a collared black jacket, unzipped and open, a navy hoodie underneath. He had chin-length dark brown hair and an olive tan. He had glowing green eyes. Glowing, because they were such a vibrant shade, too light to be considered normal.

Everyone neither moved nor spoke a word, mainly because of his sudden appearance the newcomer was an unknown attendee with a seemingly roguish face.

Chiron gave the boy a knowing look. "And who might you be, boy?"

He quirked an eyebrow and glanced at every given face present. "It was my personal choice to show myself." He looked to Chiron, his eyes fierce. "My name is Vincent Walsh. I'm here to talk about your missing children."


	5. Closure

**Chiron eyed Vincent with doubtful scrutiny,** his eyebrows drawn to form a crease between them. "I don't believe we've officially met." He tried for a friendly tone.

Vincent pulled a tight smile. "Seems not." His eyes flickered to the three demigods who sat in subsidiary accompaniment, then to Chiron again. "Can I have a word with you? In private?"

Chiron regarded him for a moment, then bowed his head and wheeled himself to back up so he could get around the edge of the table. "I suppose. Let's talk inside."

"Splendid," Vincent crooned. He turned on his heel and headed over to the front door of the Big House.

"Chiron," Annabeth said, as she watched Vincent walk off, "who was that? Do you know him?"

"I don't," he said. "Percy, Annabeth, Euth, could the three of you please refrain from interrupting our conversation, and to inform the campers to do so as well? Also, will one of you tell Will that he'll be teaching archery to the campers this evening?"

The three of them agreed to Chiron's terms. They watched as he wheeled himself over to where Vincent was propping open the screen door with his foot with all the etiquette of a gentleman. The two exchanged light words of gratitude before they entered.

Chiron led Vincent into the living room. The small space was furnished with a few leather couches that squared around the stone fireplace. Mounted above the mantel was a stuffed head of a spotted feline. Vincent observed the oddity with curiosity. His hands were behind his back, fingers loosely entwined, like a browsing inspector of genuine interest.

"A... leopard?" Vincent looked to Chiron. "A cheetah."

"You guessed right the first time."

"Is it alive?" he asked.

"Quite." Chiron parked his wheelchair by the fireplace and held out his hands to the cackling flames, the heat doing wonders to his spotted hands. "His name is Seymour, if it even matters to you. If we speak quietly, we should be able to avoid waking him."

Vincent had a quizzical look in his eye, almost as if he was having a difficult time understanding how something with no functional body could ultimately be living.

"This must be strange for you," Chiron said. "Our worlds are relatively diverse from each other."

"On the contrary, Chiron," Vincent said, "you aren't the only one with a severed head for a pet." He reached his hand up, and although just out of reach from Seymour's muzzle, he could still feel the warm breath it exhaled despite not having lungs.

"So I've heard."

"So you've heard..." Vincent pocketed his hand.

Chiron sighed. "I presume that you mean well, Mister Walsh, but your claims toward my campers are resolute. I won't take anymore cautions. Now, please, have a seat."

Vincent hummed. He turned on his heels and sat down on the closest edge of the couch, crossing a leg over the other. There was a small glass bowl of what looked to mainly just be butterscotch candies. Vincent plucked one out, pulled at its twisted ends to unwrap it, and popped it in his mouth.

He swiveled the candy in his mouth before biting down on it, crushing it, and swallowed. He wasn't one to savor. There was a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, something that wasn't common with butterscotch.

"These aren't regular candies," he said, stuffing the candy wrapper into his coat pocket.

Chiron looked to the bowl. "No," he agreed. "It's a new approach. I'm sure you're familiar with the divine drink of the Olympian gods."

"Nectar." Vincent nodded and took a few candies, pocketing them.

"With a combined effort from a few of the campers," Chiron said, "we were able to convert it into a more appetizing form for the younger children that come."

"Clever. Everyone loves candy."

"It seems as much."

Vincent crossed his arms over his chest and slouched a little into the couch. "That look," he said. "It looks as if you're under siege."

"I might as well be." Chiron clasped his hands in his lap. "Two of my campers met their untimely demise a few months back and now, currently, three are missing. You said you wanted to speak to me about them. Will any of it be good news?"

"Don't know." Vincent sat forward suddenly. He uncrossed his legs and had his elbows perched on his knees. "But let's talk about that in private, yeah?"

"Aren't we already-"

Vincent reached out and placed a hand on Chiron's shoulder. Between the moment it took either of them to blink, they weren't sitting in the living room of the Big House anymore. Rather, they were standing on a ridge that overlooked a valley.

It was spread out beneath them and stopped at a sort of bay where the shoreline caved in out yonder. Three separate bodies of water rippled at the foot of the ridge's slope from the heavy wind that warded against them, with an isolated rock hill that rose abruptly from the gentle slope of the grassy terrain on their right. To their left were more ridges that dipped into the valley, and together, created a kind of bowl-like landform.

Vincent shivered. He zipped up his jacket and put on the hood from the hoodie he wore underneath. Beside him, Chiron was out of his wheelchair and, with the additional height the horse-half of himself seemed to put on, he loomed over him.

Vincent rubbed his hands together and breathed on them. He should have just stayed back where it was warm, but he needed to be certain no one was listening in on their conversation. The Greek campers excluded, he was more concerned with the birds in the area, namely the ravens.

"Where..." Chiron began to say. He had the same look Vincent had when he'd first laid eyes on the view here: awestruck. "Where have you taken me? This is nowhere close to New York."

"You're right," he said, and breathed on his hands again, cupping them around his mouth. "Welcome to Scotland."

"Scotland." Chiron sounded unsure.

"Yeah," Vincent said, as if he was stating the obvious. "To be more specific, we're in the land where the Vikings had their last stand: _Blar a' Bhuailte_."

"But we _are_ in Scotland, in the United Kingdom?"

Vincent huffed. "Yes."

"And your explanation as why you've brought me here?" Chiron had on a look of uncertainty, as if he wasn't sure whether he was making a precarious decision by listening to Vincent's side of the story.

Vincent pulled his hands inside of his sleeves and shoved them in his pockets. He had a very low tolerance for the cold and was already regretting not staying back where it was warm.

"The birds," he said. Chiron raised an eyebrow. "Ravens. Look, I'm not going to go into depth about it, but our camp uses ravens as a means of communication. They're like our eyes and our ears. That's how we found those two demigods by that creek and the three in the mountains."

"Two demigods by the creek and three in the mountains?"

Vincent realized his mistake. He sniffled and tried to play it through. "Uh, yes. They report anything suspicious, like the _those_ two and the three who were within our territory. I don't understand why you wouldn't think anything else of what happened."

"They left camp a week ago," Chiron said. "I haven't heard a word from them within the time that they were gone."

"Right, well, two out of three of them are missing..." Vincent bobbed his head left and right. "... permanently."

"Missing permanently." The words seemed to leave Chiron in a foul mood. Anything missing permanently only meant one thing.

"Dead," Vincent said bluntly.

Chiron closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose. When he opened them, he exhaled. His expression was guarded and steely, like he was on the verge of anger but had to keep reminding himself to stay calm.

"I would appreciate it if you could retrieve their bodies," he said. "For their burial rights."

"Unless you can pick out whose ashes are whose, I wouldn't count on it." Chiron didn't speak. "Hey, they were originally going to be burnt with the hogs back at camp. I call that a mercy killing. Besides, they aren't all dead. We still have one, you know, _alive_."

Chiron raised his chin and in a voice that was steely calm said, "I propose you compromise a negotiation with whomever is in charge as to bringing them home."

"Like I haven't already tried?" Vincent looked out over the valley for a moment before looking back up to Chiron, scratching the side of his neck. "Look, security is tight at camp, okay? If I could, I would. I want nothing more than to stop all of this and renew our treaty, but I don't have a say."

"You always have a say."

"A son of Loki never has a say."

"Is this what you came to talk to me about?" Chiron looked crestfallen. "Is this how you intend I break the news to the campers, with more bad news? They deserve better."

"Everyone deserves better, one way or another." Vincent sighed and hunched up his shoulders. "Look, for one reason or another, we've been targeting your camp. I thought it was because of the whole Romans-and-Greeks-have-an-alliance thing, but that could only be a cover-up."

"A cover-up." Chiron narrowed his eyes. "Of what kind?"

Vincent opened his mouth, then closed it. It had been at the front of his thoughts, but now that he thought about it, he couldn't acquire the exact memory as to what he was going to say. He knew it had something to do with his camp, but everything else was fuzzy.

He opened his mouth again, said something along the lines of, "Ahhh," and then closed it.

Chiron looked to be running out of patience. He pawed at the ground with his front hooves, something Vincent recognized as an action horses often did when feeling impatient or frustrated. But he saw that he had a front leg lifted, which was, by all means, an imminent threat.

"A cover-up for... _something_!"

He was so frustrated in himself for not remembering what he was going to tell Chiron that he hadn't realized that he'd raised his voice. Though, at the same time as when he'd raised his voice, an electric bang sounded overhead, which had Vincent's ears popping and the air smelling of ozone. And at the same time as when he'd raised his voice and when the electric bang sounded overhead, Chiron had been so startled as to kick Vincent in the stomach.

Vincent staggered backwards as the scenery melted away in a pixilated mess of earthy browns and greens, where the sky shook and broke to shambles, and the valley below caved in on itself into a vast of nothingness. Chiron and he were where they had been before, with Vincent sitting at the edge of the couch, a hand placed on Chiron's shoulder who sat in his wheelchair in front of him.

Vincent sat back, his hand slipping from Chiron's shoulder. He felt light-headed. He hadn't expected anything to go awry during his little illusional mimicry, and he sure as hell didn't expect there to be physical pain where Chiron had kicked him.

He rubbed his stomach, expecting himself to look like he had the world's worst stomach ache.

Chiron sat up straight and alert, confused for a moment as he looked around. "I hope that wasn't your idea of a talk. Would you mind clarifying to me exactly what that was?"

Vincent closed his eyes, trying to inwardly catch his breath. He said, "A memory. I showed you exactly what I experienced when I visited there."

"So we were never actually in Scotland."

"Yes and no."

Chiron narrowed his eyes. "Was it for the birds?" He thought he sounded silly for talking about such a thing. "You mentioned you needed to get away from them?"

"When it comes to the conscious," he said and furrowed his eyebrows, "you can't physically track it. I did us both a favor."

"Chiron!"

Someone barged into the living room, their footing heavy against the wooden floorboards. They were probably wearing shoes. Vincent screwed his mouth up at the thought.

"Are you alri—whoa."

"Is he dead? He looks dead."

"He looks unwell, not dead, Euth."

Vincent squinted his eyes open and found the three other demigods he saw earlier on the porch standing in the living room by the stair case. "Drit og dra," he said.

The shorter of the three with the mismatched eyes looked taken aback, like he took Vincent's vulgarity as a personal affront.

"I can assure you, Euth," Chiron said, "that he is, in fact, alive. A bit under the weather, but otherwise well."

Percy looked on edge. "Did something happen?"

"I'm not sure, but the three of you look startled. "

"Thunderclouds started forming above the Big House," Annabeth said. "And, like, all these birds started swarming the roof. Crows. Ravens, maybe?"

Chiron moved to stand up and extracted his lower half out of the false compartment of the seat of his wheelchair. He clomped his hooves on the floor to stretch his legs, his tail swooshing back and forth.

He looked at Vincent expectantly, but the son of Loki had nothing to share.

"Is he sleeping?" Percy asked, then scoffed. "I want what he's having."

Annabeth nudged him in the arm and told him to quit it.

Chiron sighed. "Euth, please take him to the infirmary. Have someone inform me when he awakes, will you?"

"Sure, but..."

He gave him a pointed look. With a begrudged affirmation, Euth lifted Vincent onto his shoulders and carried him to the infirmary, which seemed to be the easiest way besides dragging him all the way there.

Chiron abstained from answering any questions Annabeth or Percy may have had and excused himself to his office.

That night, instead of gathering around the campfire to sing songs like usual, what campers there were, gathered for the burning of the burial shrouds of those who were thought to be M.I.A. Because the height and the color of the flames depended on the general mood of the campers, the campfire burned low and black in its pit.

Chiron stood beside four campers who each held up their fellow cabin-mate's burial shroud. He gave an honorary oration in regards to the four demigods who had their lives taken so soon from them, extolling the deeds of the brave.

When all was said and done, their shrouds were draped over the flames of the campfire. Those who could, stayed. Those who couldn't, discretely excused themselves to their respective cabin and clocked in for the night.

Amanda Hayes: undetermined; 13 years.

Pascal Gage: undetermined; 14 years.

Anthony Wickham: child of Ares; 15 years.

Mira Ferro: daughter of Peitharchia; 17 years.


	6. An Oath By Blood

**George Walsh was poised on the sloped corner** of an abandoned parking lot, the mountains ghosted blue in the distance. He shivered against the morning chill despite the two hoodies and the sweatpants he wore. He opened and closed his fists, feeling the coldness of his fingers against the his palms. It was because he'd been so vain as to wear fingerless gloves and not the functional ones that his fiancée had given him last Christmas, that he would have to suffer, but there would be no one to see them except for Joseph and the starless suburban night.

Winter was an undesirable season in Maine, but it was a tolerable one. They were cold and snowy throughout the state, and were especially severe up in the northern parts, mainly around Aroostook County. The coastal areas, however, were of a moderate temperature by the Atlantic Ocean, which resulted in milder winters and cooler summers. George would have rather met Joseph in Brooklin, at least in the same area as his camp, but Joseph wouldn't be taking any chances, so the two of them agreed to meet up in Bangor.

George dragged his foot against the asphalt and felt the bumps of loose rocks roll under his shoe. Around his waist his sword hung, sheathed in its scabbard and hooked to its belt. He never left his room without it, which was a habit his fiancée had been trying to rid him of and a threat Vincent had been yearning to divulge in the matter of importance to the Council of the Ansuz, which was something George couldn't be bothered to worry about, because, although his cousin was a high-ranking member of Camp Norse, not even Ullr's council body would listen to anything sharing blood with the wily trickster god.

Joseph's rust-colored pony car pulled in from the other side of the lot, a compacted yet styled sporty car that looked like it had just come out of the 1970's. George heard the distorted bass of the stereo a moment before he made out the tune as Joseph stopped in front of him. He shifted from foot to foot and heard the click of the passenger door unlock, which was a cue for him to hurry his ass up and get in, which he did gladly.

The inside of the car smelled musty and heavily like freshly-mowed grass. George cranked the window all the way down and spewed out a coughing fit.

"Christ," he said, his voice pinched. "Can you not hotbox the fucking car?"

Joseph sat behind the wheel, his foot flooring the brake pedal and his hands lethargically hanging from the top of the steering wheel. He had his head tilted back, his eyes closed. If George wasn't mistaken, he'd have thought he was asleep.

And then Joseph was laughing. It was one of those giddy, drunken laughs, where it was endless and reluctantly comedic. George perched his elbow on the bottom frame of the rolled-down window and scowled out over the isolated parking lot.

"Oh, come on, man." Joseph was awake, fully awake, his pupils small and pin-like. "It's my fuckin' car anyway. When you get your own, then you don't gotta worry 'bout anything."

George sighed, his breath visible, if only for a second. "Yeah, I get it," he said, and then buckled himself in. "Let's just get goin'. We'll talk while you drive."

Joseph scoffed. "Whatever you say, Walsh."

He shifted the gear stick from PARK to DRIVE and, rather than ease off the brakes, he lifted his foot completely and accelerated the gas. George gave a vice grip to the passenger grab-handle above him when Joseph turned sharply out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

Only those who'd left for their jobs early dominated the street, but Joseph was relentless; he sped through yellow lights, ignored the rules of one-way streets, and never stopped and proceeded with caution at stop signs. The world was quiet in its own groggy awareness.

Joseph made a right onto Church Road and drive past the Maple Grove Cemetery. Open, brown-grassed fields expanded on either side of the road. Barren trees, their naked branches crooked and vulnerable to the cold, whizzed past in a blur.

He spoke up. "How're the kids doin,' by the way?"

George turned his head to look at him and furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean kids?" He adjusted the seat belt that rubbed against his neck, pulling it over his shoulder.

Joseph laughed, a sort of guffaw that sounded deep in the chest and was loud and boisterous, something George wasn't used to hearing from someone so lanky and fragile-looking. "Mira and Anthony and Matt!" he exclaimed, his voice ringing with the air that whistled from the open window.

George stayed silent. Yes, he remembered Mira and Anthony and Matthew, but not in the conditions that they had been in previous to the arrangement. He remembered them to be charred and deformed, their bodies having been deposited in a fire-pit deep within the mountainous terrains of Baxter State Park. Matthew had been the only one to live, but without the proper medical treatment Eric had provided him once him, he would have died as well.

When George didn't say anything else, Joseph took one hand off the steering wheel and reached behind the passenger's seat while George thumbed the blunt end of his sword's handle.

"Come on, man!" He produced a small glass bottle that was filled with caramel-colored liquid and handed it to George. "Have a sip or two. You've gotta be cold."

George huffed, but accepted the whiskey. "Maybe if you didn't blast the A/C when it's already in the thirties."

"Maybe if you didn't complain so much."

George twisted the bottle's cap, breaking the sticker-seal around it, and popped the cork out. He tilted his head back and took a heavy drink, puffing his cheeks with a mouthful, and swallowed. It burnt his throat and warmed his stomach, something he hadn't felt since the day he got expelled from G.S. Academy for breaking into the headmistress's liquor cabinet and showing up drunk at his twelfth-grade graduation ceremony.

"There we go," Joseph said in a soft, whispered voice. "Just a wee dram to ward off the winter chill."

"Shut up," George said and handed him the Crown Royal.

While George had only taken a sip, although a large one, Joseph nearly downed half of the bottle. He accelerated the car and the speedometer's needle whirred high on the gauge. And it was within that moment, between the bitter-sweet taste of whiskey in his mouth and Joseph reaching for the stick-shift to switch gears, that George regretted ever agreeing to this meet-up.

The road led to a three-way intersection, where Church Road became perpendicular with Essex Street. Joseph turned left, and because he was going so fast and didn't suspect anyone else to be on the road, nearly crashed head-on into a silver Nissan Sentra.

"Holy shit!"

Joseph jerked the wheel and swerved off the street and onto a neighboring strip of lawn which jutted out from someone's picket fence. The passenger side-view mirror clipped the mailbox, breaking off the red semaphore flag, and just about crushed the entire thing with the rear end of the car. George hollered out something vulgar. Joseph was laughing like a madman.

The person Joseph had nearly hit sounded their horn and made exaggerated and very indelicate gestures. George smacked Joseph on the back of the head and called him a fucking it.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he exclaimed. "Are you really already that drunk? What the fuck?"

Joseph scoffed, offended. "Don't yell at me, man! Bitch nearly hit me."

" _You_ nearly hit 'em. Don't give me that crap."

He waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

George sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, bouncing his leg rhythmically while Joseph tapped his hands on the steering wheel to the song that sung in his head. They sped by Everlasting Farm, past its awning-covered greenhouses and its flower garden patches and its little read barn with its little white truck parked out front of it.

Joseph sniffed. "Welcome to Orono," he said, and then turned to look at George. "Home of the University of Maine."

George rolled his eyes. "Why are we here?"

"Ask me that again in about five minutes."

And it was, more or less, five minutes when George asked again. Joseph had turned down a more isolated road, snowy gravel of its path, and surrounded by trees with dead leaves. They came to a roundabout with a lone oak that seemed half dead, but still very much alive and very out of place.

But the thing was, George knew that tree. He knew it biblically, from the lessons he'd taken at his old parochial school and the plethora of Germanic pagan lore he'd managed to succumb to: Jove's Oak. Known in Old High German as Donar's Oak, it had been an oak tree that was sacred to the Norse god Thor, and was cut down by a Christian missionary named Winfrid Boniface to build what would be the site of today's Saint Peter's Cathedral in Fritzlar, Germany.

"What the hell, Joseph?"

"I don't know, man," he said. "I just think —"

"Why are we here? Of all places?"

Joseph looked at him, confused. "What?"

George gestured towards the oak tree, which was less of a tree and more of a stump. Ashen moss grew at the center and dappled the sides, eventually spreading to the base with the shriveled wheat stocks that were blanketed with morning frost. Joseph opened his mouth, realization dawning his face.

"Oh," he said. "The… stump?"

George huffed. "Yes, the damn stump. Why're we here? Do you even know what that is?"

"It's a, uh, tree… stump?"

George hit the ceiling of the car, his fist tightly clenched, his knuckles white. "Thor's Oak! You brought us to Thor's Oak."

Joseph narrowed his eyes, staring ahead at the rotted stump. "But wasn't that cut down ages ago?"

"Yes," George said, "it was, but now it's here. You've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Me?" Joseph whirled on him. "How the hell was I supposed to know that it was some sacred oak, or whatever? Look, Walsh, can we just cut to the chase? I called you, remember? To talk?"

And that he had. George had received a direct phone call from Joseph who'd been calling from a payphone in the auditorium lobby of Kennedy High School in Bellmore. He'd said that he needed to speak with him directly, face-to-face, about the contract that they'd agreed on nearly half a year before — a contract they'd bound with an oath and blood.

George reached forward and pulled up the metal bar that was below his seat, and grounded his feet to the ground and pushed back. His seat follow, rolling back and locking into place after about a two-foot difference. He had more leg room, more room to move, and crossed his ankle over his thigh and gave Joseph a look that encouraged him to carry on.

Joseph slammed himself back into a sluggish sitting position and humphed.

"This ain't good news," he said.

George's self-control sizzled. "Just spill it."

Joseph downed a heavy sip of whiskey, the bottle in his hand, which he'd never let go of, and gave a gravely and unapologetic sigh as he handed the bottle over to George.

When George became impatient, he was an active use of the adjective hotheaded. He did everything with curt, brash movements, which was no different when he snatched the bottle of Crown Royal of Joseph's hand and then proceeded to open the passenger door and chuck it out.

"Dude!" Joseph cried out. "That costed my paycheck's worth."

George sat back down, but kept the car's door open. A feverishly cold breeze swept inside, causing goosebumps to ghost up Joseph's arms and tingle the back of his bare neck.

"Your taste in alcohol sucks," he said. "Now, just tell me whatever the hell you've gotta say. I didn't come to prattle and get drunk. I came to know just why you called."

"Right," Joseph said. "It's about the treaty we signed."

"By blood," George added.

"By blood, yes." Joseph licked his lips. "Oh, so — I don't. No, we should — shit, I don't know! Walsh, man, come on. Do we really gotta keep on doin' this? At first, it was, like, _great_ and everything, but now? What the hell? Two dead in New York and now another two dead in Maine? And then, don't even get me started with the whole 'prisoner' thing."

Joseph sighed like he was tired.

George cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't know you knew all of that."

"Well, it's kind of hard _not_ to know when Chiron decides to gather the entire camp at the pavilion and tell everyone." He sniffed and whipped at his nose. "You didn't tell me your brother was coming to meet him."

George blinked. "My brother?"

"Yeah," Joseph said. "Average height. Black hair; shoulder-length, I think. Hella green eyes. He kind of reminds me of Nico — son of Hades, so with, like, the whole goth-punk vibe and everything, and the long hair. Kids need to cut it, damn."

George's jaw clenched and unclenched. "He's my cousin," he said. "Why was he there?"

Joseph shrugged. "Don't know, man. He just came, talked with Chiron, and then, like, passed out. He's probably still there, or he's back in Maine. I dunno."

"Did he say anything else?"

"What do you —" Joseph stopped himself. His stomach hurt with the assumption that maybe, just maybe, this Walsh cousin of George's knew what they'd done. That he knew the truth and decided to tell Chiron. Maybe he'd even told the administrators back at his camp in Maine.

"What else would he need to say?"

George scratched at his chin and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess. He probably doesn't know, which is what I want. But really, if he did find out and tried to tell Ullr?" He gave an uncomical laugh. "I don't think anyone would believe him anyway."

"Chiron seems to," Joseph said.

"Yeah? Well, keep an eye on him for me."

Joseph looked conflicted. "Keep an eye on Chiron? Are you kidding me?"

George gave him a look. "No, I'm not."

Under George's gaze, Joseph felt small, ant-like, an insignificant creature not worth his time and not worth his breath. George was all height and width, all hard and rough edges. His sword was nudged in on the floor by his foot, the length of it passing between his legs and resting against his thigh. The shine from the metal ridge on the handle glinted in the morning glow. It was that sword, the sleekness of it, that made the tips of Joseph's fingers itch and tingle.

"You understand that we can't break this, right?" George said it as a statement, not a question.

Joseph swallowed. "Well, yeah, I know. But that doesn't mean —" He stopped and composed himself, relaxing his shoulders and unwrinkled his brows. His heart raced. He looked George in the eye, scared, yes, but determined. "I know, but I want to. I have to. You need to be stopped."

And it was within that moment that the air began to smell of ozone, that sweet and pungent zing that came on days of rushed winds and dark clouds. The hairs on George's arms rose as small sparks of electricity cracked from his fingertips. Joseph felt a wave of nausea rush through him, so he moved his hand to unbuckle himself.

"Hey — wait!"

The seatbelt clicked.

When George extended his hand, Joseph caught his forearm with a white-knuckled grip. A prickling sensation overwhelmed his hand, spreading up his arm to his elbow. All he felt was pins and needles, almost like his nerves were vibrating. The car, which had been running, now sputtered and came to an end with a final mechanical whine.

There was a moment of hesitation, or really, a moment that seemed to slow down. They both saw it, both acknowledged it, and wired back. Joseph felt buzzed, high, like he was floating in the surreal reality of it all. George seemed taken aback. He hadn't been expecting for Joseph to grab him.

And then there was a woman standing in the way of the open door, a hip jutted out and her arms folded in a way that made her seem methodical and curious-eyed, with her chin resting atop of her knuckles and her brows raised with sleight interest.

"Oh, don't let me interrupt," she said, her voice pitched in an accented sing-song tone.

George held his breath, but Joseph blurted out, "Who're you?"

The woman seemed satisfied with the question and replied, "My name is Vár. Ain't it a quaint mornin'?"

George sighed. "Shit."


	7. Ullr's Calling

**Johnson woke to the smell of** garlic and spiced wine, something that prickled his nostrils and burned his throat at every inhale. When he swallowed, there was a dry and bitter taste in his mouth, like he hadn't brushed his teeth the night before. And when he shifted his weight, he felt the soft material of fur brush against the tops of his bare feet.

It was then that he tried to sit himself up, but a stabbing ache in his left arm made him cringe and stop.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," someone said. The voice was clear, albeit stultify-sounding, but was dwindled by distance.

Naturally, by an opposition of compliance, he did exactly what that someone told him not to do. He doubled forward and felt something nauseous bubble in the pit of his stomach in doing so.

Johnson heard heavy footsteps come toward him, neither slow nor fast. They weren't in too much of a hurry, but the concern was subtle. He felt hands on him, pushing him back down. Instead, he went sideways and threw up.

Johnson was shoved aside. Hard. The back of his head hit something. A wall, most likely. The nauseous feeling in his stomach was gone, much like everything else that had been in it. He opened his eyes. He closed them. The room was spinning, a swirling mass of gray and black and speckled whites.

The last thing he remembered before passing out, was someone cursing every foul and forbidden word possible, in English and in a language that he couldn't understand.

* * *

It was when he woke again did Johnson hear people speaking in hushed voices beside him. They sounded argumentative and spoke in that same language that he couldn't understand. One voice was the same one he'd heard subsequent to waking up before, and the other was lighter, almost child-like in pitch, but soft-spoken even when upset.

Johnson relaxed his brow and was about to open his eyes, but a voice spoke harshly in English and he immediately advised against it.

"I don't care what you think," they said — she said, he presumed was who was speaking. "This place isn't some refuge. If Ullr finds out — "

"Ullr already knows," the other voice said, calmer. "I told him when Jo and me came back. And — " There was movement, a heavy shuffle of shoes on grated wood, and an accusing silence, " — don't come calling this place a refuge just 'cause he's here. If someone's hurt, they're welcome. Doesn't matter whether he's Greek."

There was the sound of material moving and the sound of a huff. Johnson could envision someone crossing their arms over their chest like a small, boneheaded child.

"Jo and I."

There was a grunted exclaim of frustration. "Mina! Shut. The. Fuck. Up. No one cares about being grammatically correct."

"And that's the problem with millennials these days."

A scoff and then —

"Hey, _bacraut_. You can stop eavesdropping on us now, you know."

Johnson's shoulder was shoved and he came to be on his back as a result. His left arm still hurt, was still in that same biting pain as before, and he groaned out something even he himself couldn't understand. He opened his eyes and saw a sunglass-wearing boy and a shaven-headed girl standing at his side.

"'Ey," the girl said. "English. We don't speak _blot_."

He furrowed his eyebrows at the word _blot_. He wondered what that meant in their language. By way of tone, he assumed nothing flattering.

His tongue felt too big for his mouth when he slurred out, "Hurts. My arm."

The boy screwed his mouth up distastefully. He turned to the girl. She shrugged. He sniffed and turned around to walk away.

"Hey, wait," Johnson called out. His voice sounded low and hoarse, like he had a cold of some sort.

"Don't worry," the girl said. "Eric's a good medicine man. He'll, uh, you know, heal you." She leaned her shoulder against a wooden post at the foot of Johnson's cot and shrugged. "After that, you'll be bait."

"Don't like the sound of that," he said.

The girl looked at him. Really looked at him. She said, "I do," and turned her back on him. She walked away, and in her place the sunglass boy came — Eric, Johnson recalled his name being. It was the same boy who'd stepped in Anthony's blood and it was the same boy who'd knocked him right out.

His blood boiled at the memory.

Eric knelt beside him, a bowl of something in one hand and a wad of gauze and medical tape in the other. When he placed them down at his side, he removed his sunglasses and hooked them to the collar of his shirt.

"I'm gonna need you to turn on your belly," he told him.

Begrudgingly, Johnson complied. He clenched his jaw and inhaled sharply when readjusting himself and got a good look at his injury... kind of. It was bandaged with the same gauze and tape Eric had, with leaks of red seeping through. He held out his arm and turned his head the other way. It was better for the pain if he didn't watch.

Eric's hands were cautious, his fingers lissome as he removed the old, bloody bandages. There was that sickening wet sound of soiled cloth being stripped from skin. Something warm and damp pressed against the back of his upper arm, wiping away all the dried bloody. And then something cold and bitter, something that felt like a never-ending sting, was slathered over his wound.

Johnson tensed. "The hell?"

"Leek and garlic mixed with wine," Eric said. He moved on to swaddling Johnson's arm with gauze. "The leek and garlic are used as antibiotics. When it's mixed with wine, it releases cytotoxic properties, like salt in a wound."

Johnson bit the pillow his head rested on.

Eric hummed. "Sorry about the pain, but it'll kill the infection. 'Ey! Better be drinking your horehound, Sloane." The last part was directed at the girl. "Come in here complaining 'bout a sore throat. Hell, maybe if you stopped smoking, you wouldn't be coming in here so often."

"Oh, fuck off, Clauson," Sloane hollered from the other side of the room.

Eric tightened the gauze a little too tight. Johnson cursed.

"Don't you have twins to watch?" Eric asked, his words laced with the hidden plea of her leaving him be.

Sloane scoffed. She came over and stood at the foot of where Johnson was laid out, purposefully slurping loudly. "Ain't my job to babysit 'em. I hope they get into enough trouble to get themselves killed so I don't have to keep track of their asses all day." She took another noisy sip of her horehound drink.

Eric finished bandaging Johnson's arm up and stood up. He placed his hands behind his head and slowly pushed his head backwards while arching his back so that his stomach stuck out slightly. He heard a few audible pops and sighed.

Sloane shot him a finger-gun. "Nice," she said, and then proceeded to twist her head to the side. It wasn't only her neck, though. She placed her cup on a nearby table and started cracking the knuckles in her fingers, twisted her wrists and twisted her torso. A chorus of cracks and pops resonated that had Eric visibly cringing.

"I don't know how you do it," he said. "It's fine when I do it, but hearing other people... it sounds wrong."

"Try cracking them underwater. It's all echo-y and sweet-sounding." Sloane picked her cup back up and ghosted her lips above the rim, the steam from her horehound drink washing her face in warmth.

"Speaking of _underwater_." Eric turned to look at her with a raised brow. "The twins?"

She rolled her eyes. "Ah, go fuck a cow." But she was smiling, and left with her drink still in hand.

Johnson shuffled his hips, so he was lying at a slight angle and so his back didn't ache so much. If he wasn't drowning in pain and discomfort, he'd have been laughing. The exchange between Eric and Sloane was playful banter that reminded him of the times his step-siblings and he would bicker malarkey. It made him curl his lips in the simplest of smiles. It also made him feel extremely homesick.

"You two related?" he asked.

There wasn't an immediate response. Between the time of Sloane letting herself out and Johnson asking his question, he couldn't recall what had been happening. His thoughts were so wrapped up in thought that he didn't even hear Eric walk away, even with how heavy his footsteps sounded.

"Oh," came Eric's voice. "Did you say something?"

Head turned the other way, Johnson repeated his question. He felt embarrassed for having to repeat it, and then he remember he wasn't even supposed to be in this sort of situation.

Eric laughed. It was more of an airy chortle, rough around the edges from his hoarse voice, but it wasn't too loud and rested against the ears pleasantly. "Yeah," he sighed. "But no. We're not biologically related. Not by marriage, or any of that stuff."

Johnson flipped his head and saw that Eric was leaned back against the table at his side.

"So, like... childhood friends?" He sniffed.

Eric laughed again. "We met a few months ago when we had to wrestle each other when she first came. It was, ah, _lausatök_ , I think." He shrugged. "Anyway, she fucked me up. I couldn't get out of bed for, like, almost a week. She broke two of my ribs and dislocated my shoulder."

"That shouldn't have taken a week," Johnson said, because it really shouldn't had taken a measly seven days to completely heal any sort of bone fracture. The last time Johnson had broken a rib was when he joined the soccer team in the eighth grade and, during a small match from an opposing school, a player from the other team elbowed him in the chest hard. It had taken nearly two months for him to heal.

Eric gave a shiftless shrug, like _oh well_. "It's seems being the son of a goddess who deals with healing give's me some leverage, yeah?"

Johnson cursed in Ancient Greek. With the situation he was currently in, he wished he was the son of Eric's mother.

"Just so you know," Eric said, "there were quite a few who wanted to feed you to the dogs and burn you with the pigs. No one wanted you to come here. Heck, _I_ didn't want you to come here. You being here just causes a lot more trouble than we already have, okay?"

"You could've just killed me."

Eric tilted his head back and forth. "Eh, yeah. But what fun would that be?"

Johnson didn't comment on that; it wouldn't have been helpful, so he said nothing.

Eric, as chatty as he was, was impervious to silence. He gave a long and heavy sigh through his nose and then walked away, back to breaking apart dried sticks of licorice root and crushing little bundles of thyme in a granite mortar. He plucked the pedals from the echinacea he'd collected in a mason jar and laid them aside until he could find use for them.

He glanced back at Johnson. He was laying on his back now, his head turned to the side. Eric could hear the coarse breath of him snoring.

The cabin door abruptly opened, the doorknob hitting the wall in a splintering clack-bang!. The sound resonated throughout the room, startling Eric and waking Johnson.

"Eric!" The voice was loud and deep.

"It's good seeing you, too, Fisker," Eric said, never stoping to look up.

Fisker, by Eric's account, was a herculean of a man, musclebound with a premature paunch stomach and a short, thick neck. It was because of his incredible size and strength that he could send a man flying with a single shield bash, much to the misfortune of Jarel Horn's broken arm and the triumph of Fisker's gold penny. Eric made sure that he was never be paired with him during glíma.

Fisker, at the moment, wore the leather-plated panoply of armor used for sparing and weapon training. It made his already burly self seem all the more burlier. His sword was in his hand, unsheathed and gleaming, a beckon of intimidation to drop everything and fight.

Eric snapped, "Put that thing away. Do you want someone to die?"

Fisker slid his sword into its scabbard that hung at his waist. "Sorry," he said. "Forgot I was holding it!" He took a few steps further into the room and closed the door behind himself. He left a mottled trail of dirty slosh behind him. "Ullr sent me. Well, really, Sloane did. Ullr sent _her_ to get you, but I guess she didn't feel up to walkin' all the way here."

Eric snorted. "I'm sure."

He turned away from the herbs he was using and checked the fuel shelf of the rocket stove one of the dwarves at camp had made him for helping cure his literal tied tongue, knotted in a bow and everything. Fisker conversed with him as he worked.

"That him?" He pointed a stout thumb at Johnson. "That's the kid everyone's been talkin' 'bout? He ain't nothin' but limp meat and bones! Too pretty to be Tyr's."

Johnson mumbled something in Ancient Greek, maybe in English. Eric couldn't tell.

Eric stuck his finger in the little air duct to see if it was as hot as he thought it was and burned his finger almost as soon as he stuck it in. He cursed and pulled his hand back. He put his finger, now red and throbbing, in his mouth.

Fisker's laughter boomed.

Eric took his finger out of his mouth and shook it out. "Wha'tcha need anyway?"

"Your patient, actually." Fisker scrubbed at his nose. "I told you: Ullr sent me."

Eric nodded and asked, "That important?"

"You know how he is."

Johnson stirred in his cot and slowly, steadily, sat himself up. "Who the fuck," he said, his voice strained, "is _Oo_ -ler?"

" _Who the fuck is Ullr_?" Fisker chided. His bow-lipped mouth hung open, obviously in mock astonishment but still bluntly aghast. He looked to Eric. "Can you believe it, Clauson?"

"Yes," he said, "I actually can. Now, can you get him out of here? Please? I hate how he breathes."

Johnson looked offended. "Heartless."

Fisker made an animated sound between a hiccup and a chuckle. He walked over to where Johnson was struggling to stand up on his own. He was leaned over himself on the edge of the cot, his good arm shaking as his palm pressed against the bedside table. Fisker scoffed at him and yanked him to his feet by the underarm of his bad arm.

"I'm injured," Johnson gasped.

"Like I give a damn." Fisker pulled him along. "Come on. Eric, you come too."

Eric pointed at himself. "Me?"

Fisker gave him a pointed look. "Yes, you. Ullr wants to talk with you, too."

Eric huffed, but complied, grabbing his hoodie from the hook by the door before heading out.

The camp was sparsely populated. It being close to winter break, many campers had gone home to their families and friends. Those who stayed either had nowhere else to go or they stayed willingly. But there was an eerie and forlorn atmosphere that the empty expanse of the camp emitted, like an emotional afterimage that made it seem not just empty, but hyper-empty, with a total population of negative.

Fisker hauled Johnson forward, pushing him every so often. Snow covered the ground, but it wasn't deep, just enough to scrape the toe against. Only a handful of campers were out and about. Within the vast blanket of fog that clung to the ground, across the greenery and at the mouth of a small sandy beach, two campers tried dunking each other's heads under the water within an enclosed pier while two others sat at the edge and watched. Two campers were hunched over a table outside of a two-story cabin, taking turns rolling dice and moving board pieces.

The three of them passed a palisaded courtyard. The arched doors were propped open with iron statues of pointed-headed old men holding their beards with both their hands. Within the courtyard, two people were head-to-head, seemingly grappling with each other, their feet scuffing up mud and snow. And then a punch was thrown.

Johnson saw it first and stopped as Punchee scrambled back, holding their hand over their nose and mouth while Puncher advanced on them and swung their arm back for another blow.

"Shouldn't you stop them?" Johnson asked, just as Punchee ducked and hooked their arms around Puncher's waist, pushing the Pusher back.

Eric scoffed. Fisker laughed his booming laugh.

"That's Sloane for ya!" Fisker said. "Tough as a nail. Sweet as salt."

Johnson furrowed his brows and looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Salt's sour."

He gave him a wink. "Exactly."

Puncher — Sloane — veered her head back and then, because it was expected, crashed her forehead to Punchee's. Punchee went down, but within a blink of an eye, he was back up again, fist smacking into Sloane. She released a string of profanity so vulgar and loud that Fisker whooped and hollered, his beefy fist pumping in the air.

Eric scrubbed at his nose. "Yeah, that's great," he said. He patted Fisker on the shoulder. "Go. If anything gets too bloody, just take them to my cabin. And make sure Sloane doesn't kill him! We need him for tonight!" The last part was yelled at after Fisker as he jogged toward the open brawl, waving his hand over his shoulder to acknowledge the fact that he heard.

"Is this what you guys do?" Johnson asked, clearly displeased. He turned to look at Eric. "Why were they fighting anyway?"

Eric shrugged and put a hand Johnson's back, maneuvering him forward. "Taking the last bread roll. Getting a better score in archery. Not having to feed the _Nisse_ — "

"I'm sorry," Johnson interrupted. "The _Nisse_?"

"Wights who take care of the barns we have here," Eric explained. "We give them risgrøt, which is Norwegian porridge with honey and butter. They love it, and I mean _man_! Those little guys _really_ like their butter. Hey — " He hit Johnson's shoulder with the back of his hand. "How's that shoulder?"

"Not gonna heal good if people keep hitting it," he said.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"We've got harpies and these, like, nature fairies." Johnson exhaled through his nose. "They come out of the forest and help around and stuff."

"That's great," Eric said, his voice flat with mock glee. "Do they beat the shit out of you or kill your livestock if you forget to put butter in the porridge?"

"Seriously? They're like it that much?"

"You have no fuck-ing idea."

The two of them ascended a tread of stone steps that looked as if someone had just stuck a slab of rock into the ground and molded it over with dirt. At the height of the hillside they walked up, a thing of benevolent Scandinavian beauty loomed above all, a Sogn-type triple stave church with wooden shingles that covered the roof and carved dragon heads that swooped from the roof ridge crests of the gables.

Leaning in the doorless frame, a dark-haired young woman with goggles hanging from her neck waited. She wore a black hoodie with a graphic illustration of a green worm on the front and skinny jeans that could have been white with a black paint design or black with a bleached design. She wore heavy combat boots, the toe ends bejeweled with spikes.

Johnson stopped immediately. "You," he said. "What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Jo snorted. "I live here, dumb-ass. Ullr's waiting in his office." This she said to Eric.

"Thanks," Eric said. He pushed Johnson forward. "Come on, Pretty-Face, get moving. I wanna know why he's callin' me here."

"And not me?"

Jo laughed, a single chuckle that belittled the query.

"It's apparent," she said. "You being here is a violation of the Greco-Norse treaty. I mean, everything that's happened within the past week — month — _year_? It's all violations."

Eric coughed; fake coughed. "That's great, Jo. Can you let us pass so Ullr doesn't, I don't know, give us frostbite, or something?"

"He won't give you frostbite!"

"Tell that to Vincent's missing distal and intermediate phalanges."

"Oh, _pshaw_!" Jo waved her hand. "It was his fault for — "

"Yes!" Eric raised his voice, defiantly wary. "And now he knows. Move?"

Jo stared him down, her mouth twisted. She sniffed and turned her head and stepped out from the doorway. Johnson and Eric passed her without a word.


End file.
